Early Australian Jewish Music 1 the Lays of the Hebrews for Pianoforte Sydney, 1844

Australian Music Series – MDA017

Early Australian Jewish Music 1 The Lays of the Hebrews For Pianoforte Sydney, 1844

James Henri Anderson 1822/3 – Melbourne, 1879

Edited by Richard Divall

Music Archive Monash University Melbourne 2 !

Information about the MAMU series Australian Music And other available works in the free digital series is available at http://artsonline.monash.edu.au/music-archive

This edition may be used free of charge for private performance and study. It may be freely transmitted and copied in electronic or printed form. All rights are reserved for performance, recording, broadcast and publication in any audio format.

Published by MUSIC ARCHIVE OF MONASH UNIVERSITY Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music Monash University, Victoria, 3800, Australia

ISBN 978-0-9923957-6-6 ISMN 979-0-9009643-6-6

This edition has been produced with the assistance from the Australian Research Theology Foundation and the Marshall-Hall Trust ! 3

Introduction

Australia’s first notable Jewish composer was Isaac Nathan. A musician, journalist and composer he was born in 1790 in Canterbury, England, the son of a Polish cantor. Nathan arrived in Sydney in 1841. However several other composers wrote works for Jewish services or for special occasions such as the consecration of Synagogues in Hobart, Launceston and Sydney. This volume contains one of three early works that are known to us. The music is very simple, but of social importance to the development of organised Judaic religion in early Australia.

Pianist, organist and composer James Henri Anderson was born in 1822/23 and at the age of twenty arrived in Hobart on 4 February 1842. He had studied with Professor Thomson in Edinburgh and then with the English symphonist and friend of Beethoven, Philip Cipriani Potter (1792-1871), at the Royal Academy of Music, Hanover Square. Potter, as head of keyboard studies had succeeded Nicholas Charles Bochsa (1789- 1856), as director of orchestral studies in 1827, and as Principal in 1832, replacing Crotch who had retired.1 Anderson lived for some time in Launceston before returning to Hobart, and then moving to Sydney in 1844. During his time in Tasmania he was involved with the Consecration of the Launceston Synagogue in St John’s Street in 1846, and contributed a ‘symphony’ to the opening celebrations there. Prior to moving to Hobart Anderson lived in the same street. He was an excellent pianist, but ‘disorganised’ as a lecturer or speaker.

The Lays of the Hebrews is a collection of four melodies, two of them tunes to Psalms ninety-one and twenty-four. Dedicated to the British philanthropist Sir Moses Montefiore, the work was arranged for performance at the Consecration of the Sydney Synagogue in York Street on 2 April 1844. Isaac Nathan was in charge of the musical ceremonies, and also composed two works for the same consecration, namely a new Hallelujah Chorus and a setting of the Benedictus, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, both of which have not survived. Styled on the title page ‘a Professor of Music, Sydney’, the only surviving copy of this work by Anderson is held in the Mitchell Library, the State Library of New South Wales. On the title page of his Fitzroy Quadrilles of 1850, and published in Melbourne, Anderson described himself as ‘of the Royal Academy’. Little is known of his life, and he died in Melbourne on 1 May 1879.

Other composers followed in writing works for Synagogues in Australia, including works by Joseph Reichenberg for the Hobart Synagogue Consecration in 1845, and Lewis Moss Hebrew Hymn Adon’ Olam of 1867. Other composers writing in this genre included Alfred Hill’s works for the Great Synagogue in Sydney, and Felix Werder’s imaginative psalm settings, written in Melbourne, and now held in the National Library of Australia. There are no editorial notes to the score.

Richard Divall June 2014

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1!Touring!with!the!soprano!Mme!Anna!Bishop,!Bochsa!died!in!Sydney!on!6!January!1856!and!is!buried!at!St! Stephen’s!Anglican!Church,!Camperdown!Cemetery,!Newtown.! 4 !

Facsimile of the opening page of The Lays of the Hebrews Sydney 1844 Courtesy of The Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I express my deep appreciation to Allan and Maria Myers AO, and to the Rector and Provost of Newman College, The University of Melbourne. This series of sacred music has been facilitated by a grant from the Australian Research Theology Foundation, to whom I am most grateful. Again my thanks to my fellow Trustees of The Marshall-Hall Trust; Lady Primrose Potter AC, Sir James Gobbo AC, Professor John Poynter AO OBE and Associate Professor Thérèse Radic. And especially to Professor Ed Byrne AC, the President and Vice-Chancellor of Monash University, Professor John Griffiths, and to the Head of the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music, Associate Professor Rob Burke for their support and assistance of this project. I greatly appreciate the assistance of our Editorial Coordinator Mitchell Mollison.

Richard Divall May 2014

The Editor Frà Professor Richard Divall AO OBE is a Vice-Chancellor’s Professorial Fellow at Monash University, an Associate Professor of Music at The University of Melbourne, and Visiting Professor at The University of Malta. He is Chairman of the Marshall-Hall Trust and is a Knight of Malta in Solemn Religious Profession. He was awarded a D.Lett. (Hon Causa) in 1992 by Monash University and Doc. Univ. (Hon Causa) by Australian Catholic University in 2004. He is a PhD in Theology from the University of Divinity on eighteenth-century sacred music on Malta, and an edition of the complete sacred works of Nicolò Isouard (1773-1818), and is an Honorary Research Fellow at the same university. Richard Divall has edited early Australian music since 1967.